Though the dreadlocked superstar Marley became one of the giants of popular music, in 1972 he was unknown outside his homeland, Jamaica. That year, a low- budget Jamaican feature film called "The Harder They Come" introduced an international audience to the island music known as reggae. Although Marley does not appear in the film, it paved the way for the late singer's enormous success.

Reggae's second-most important figure, singer Jimmy Cliff, is the film's star. He plays the character called Ivan Martin, a country boy who becomes a pop star and a legendary outlaw. In America, "The Harder They Come" became a cult phenomenon, running for years on the midnight-movie circuit and spawning a soundtrack album that blazed a trail toward the mainstream for reggae.

Today through Tuesday, the Castro Theatre will show the film, in a new 35mm print, as part of a 25th-anniversary celebration. Already, "Harder" has made stops in New York, Hawaii and Los Angeles, and at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (The movie also screens at the UC Theatre in Berkeley on July 11 and 18.)

A cautionary gangster flick, a crude musical and a rags-to-riches yarn rolled into one, "The Harder They Come" is director Perry Henzell's 1972 vision of emerging Jamaican identity. In a telephone interview from Jamaica, Henzell, now 60, says that for years after the film's release, he traveled around the world looking for distributors. Initially, resistance was daunting.

In Italy, he was told that "nobody here is interested in reggae." He persevered, landing distribution there in 1979. "Bob (Marley) came in a year later and played to 100,000 people."

That scenario, he says, "happened over and over again."

Marley died in 1981 from cancer, at the age of 36.

In the picture, the wiry and radiant Cliff plays Ivan, a greenhorn who comes to teeming Kingston seeking little more than a reasonable paycheck. Thwarted by bullies, unsympathetic foremen and a disapproving preacher, Ivan takes revenge in the recording studio.

When the music business proves as corrupt as the rest of city life -- Kingston's reigning record producer offers Ivan $20 for his surefire hit "The Harder They Come" -- the disillusioned young man gets involved in the island's marijuana trade. Ivan becomes Jamaica's most infamous outlaw, an instant hero to the ghetto youths who pack Kingston movie houses to cheer their favorite gunslingers.

"It's two completely different films, really," says the Jamaican- born Englishman Henzell. "In North America, Europe and Japan, it's for college-educated people who want to glimpse the other side. In places like Brazil and South Africa, it plays like 'Kung Fu,' for illiterate audiences."

As Henzell suggests, the movie reflects reggae's gospel-like spirituality and its fierce defiance, with inspirational songs like Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross" and "You Can Get It If You Really Want It" featured alongside plenty of shoot- 'em-up scenes. Henzell defends himself against the long-standing charge that his movie glorifies thug life. "There is no pornographic violence in it," he says. What about the gory "slashing" scene, in which Ivan carves up the face of a hostile co-worker with a switchblade?

"That was a mistake," says the director with a laugh. "Too much blood came through (the actor's) fingers, and I couldn't do another take." The movie was made on a shoestring, for $400,000,

The soundtrack album has joined Marley's catalog as reggae's cornerstones.

Island Records was unable to nail down a sales figure for the album, which almost certainly has sold several million copies.

With classic cuts by the Melodians, Toots and the Maytals, and Desmond Dekker alongside Cliff's four songs, the album is a near-perfect primer of Jamaican pop, Spliff Skankin' says.

In recent years, Henzell -- owner of a hotel and a film studio -- has returned to his first passion, writing. He has a book coming out this autumn ("Power Game"), and he says he has written a treatment for "The Harder They Come II."

For a time, Henzell says, Cliff wanted to do his own sequel; reportedly, he's now making a movie with Haitian-American hip-hoppers the Fugees.

Though they no longer have much contact, Henzell said: "I hope he makes a good movie that doesn't infringe upon my rights. I hope he makes a million dollars."

'THE HARDER THEY COME'

The film plays at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., San Francisco, today through Tuesday. Call (415) 621-6120.